The Public's Trust in Government: A Book Review

Gaining and retaining the public's trust in government is the principal reason given for passing ethics codes. But there is little talk beyond this about the concept of trust.

I just read a book called The Moral Foundations of Trust by Eric M. Uslaner (Cambridge University Press, 2002). This book's focus is on what the author calls 'generalized trust,' that is, the optimistic belief that people are basically trustworthy. However, the author also talks a lot about the other sort of trust, 'strategic trust,' which is a form of trust that requires reciprocity. This is the kind of trust that people mean when they talk about trust in government. You don't have to have faith that politicians and administrators are basically trustworthy. The reciprocity involves our electing them to raise and spend our taxes, and to hire those who raise and spend our taxes and, in return, their acting as fiduciaries responsible and accountable to citizens, raising and spending taxes openly, responsibly, and in the public interest rather than in their own personal interest.

Trust is not just a nice-sounding word to use as an excuse for writing ethics codes. It is the foundation not only of a successful government, but also of a successful society.

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'[A] republic's strengths emerge less from armies than from citizens' willingness to extend trust to one another every day at work, in the marketplace and in cultural and public meetings.' (Yale professor Jim Sleeper) Sleeper was referring to generalized trust here, but what he says also applies to strategic trust in government.

Uslaner argues that government cannot do anything about generalized trust, at least in a positive way. As we saw with Watergate, government can certainly undermine trust in government, which has deteriorated since that time (along with, as it turns out, generalized trust among Americans). I disagree with Uslaner here. Although he does bring out a lot of statistical evidence for his argument, it is all at the national level. At the local level, ethical leadership can, I believe, make a positive difference to a community. Ethical leaders can make a difference not only when there's a change from a less to more ethical government environment, but also by preserving an ethical government environment as the ongoing norm.

What does trust do? It helps us 'resolve conflicts with people with whom we disagree, and with whom we might even have little in common.' Trust is especially important, therefore, in diverse communities.

Robert Putnam, author of Bowling Alone, believes that there is a virtuous circle involving trust in government and citizen participation in government. Uslaner is not a big believer in this virtuous circle, but he does acknowledge that 'trust in government ... leads people to get involved in politics across 12 categories of political actions' and that there is a linkage between faith in government and improved governmental performance. 'It is easy to make a democracy,' he writes. 'It is tougher to make a democracy work. That is the task of trust.' Also, 'when people know that they will be treated fairly, they will develop respect for the legal system and realize that they must behave honestly themselves. ... Honest government both establishes a model for ethical behavior and enforces those standards.'

I have certainly seen the virtuous circle happen, especially in the negative and at the local level. When there's a great deal of conflict, and when government is closed and not trusted, citizens who have no particular interest in local government decisions tend to stay away and leave the work to those who do have a personal interest in the decisions. When it is perceived that government is run by those with personal interests, this undermines participation all the more. This is the principal unvirtuous circle of trust in local government.

I took a look at the disastrous consequences of a perception that local government is not ethical in a blog entry on Hurricane Katrina and local government in Louisiana.

What else does trust do for us? 'Agreements based upon trust may be more lasting and don't have to be renegotiated at every step.' Trust is based on 'a fundamental ethical assumption: that other people share your fundamental values.' Without this belief, it is hard to accept government authority. Everything is questioned, every motive is suspect. It is hard to run a government like that, it takes a great deal more work.

The political scientist Francis Fukayama has written, 'Trust arises when a community shares a set of moral values in such a way as to create regular expectations of regular and honest behavior.' To which Uslaner adds, 'when others share our basic premises, we face fewer risks when we seek agreement on collective action problems.' And 'trust is more the cause than the effect of good government, perhaps because trusting people are more likely to endorse strong standards of moral behavior.'

The author points out one form of trust that is particularly problematic for local governments: trusting only those one knows or those with whom one has something special in common, especially ethnicity and religion. This closed sort of trust can undermine the trust of outsiders in a government run by a particular group. This sort of trust leads to conflicts that have nothing to do with the operation of government, and everything to do with who holds power. Government becomes something that is neither for personal interest nor for the public interest, but for the interests of a particular group. This is not something that ethics codes can deal with, but it can be the central ethical problem of a community.

Distrust is actually good for government. It is one of the things that leads people to work to keep politicians accountable. But distrust is not the opposite of trust; the opposite of trust is a lack of trust, and this leads people to neither be involved in government, nor fully accept its decisions. Central to trust are optimism and a feeling that one has control over one's life. Those who are pessimistic about government and feel that it has too much control over one's life are more likely to be untrusting not only of government, but of others.

Or as Dietland Stolle has written, 'Citizens who feel that they are taken seriously by politicians, listened to, and respected, may also develop a belief in other people or people in general. If they perceive politicians to act fairly, honestly, and responsively, they feel more secure and encouraged to trust others.'

In fact, statistical studies have shown that at the aggregate level, 'confidence in government was the most important factor shaping faith in other people.'

So there does appear to be a virtuous circle with trust in government at its center, and I think this is especially true at the local level.